


December Birthdays

by vanillafluffy



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Bucky Barnes Recovering, Bucky Barnes Remembers, Coffee Shops, Coffee shop but not an AU, December events, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-08
Updated: 2017-12-08
Packaged: 2019-02-12 06:31:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,575
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12953385
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vanillafluffy/pseuds/vanillafluffy
Summary: Bucky is working in the Tower. On his days off, he likes to hang out and get caffeinated. Sometimes, a little thing like that can jog his memory....





	December Birthdays

Sometimes, when JB wants to get out of the rarefied atmosphere of the Tower, he goes out for coffee. In the old days, he would have visited a diner, a haven of chrome and linoleum and cheerful waitresses named Hazel or Mabel. These days, though, he winds up in a coffee shop for his morning eye-opener. They never had anything like this, not that JB can remember--and he’s pretty sure he’d remember a temple dedicated to the worship of coffee.

JB has tried several of these shrines to java, and this one is okay. They don’t have four dozen diffeerent kinds of drinks with cutesy titles. Here, when he asks for “the biggest cup of coffee you’ve got”, that’s what he gets: a tapered cylinder that holds a pint of black coffee, to be doctored to his liking at a station to one side of the service counter. 

Real cream still seems like a decadent luxury, but he figures that’s part of the cost of the coffee, which would have bought him dinner for two back in the day. Lots of that rich cream and just a smidgen of sugar…nice. Good stuff--it oughta be, for what it cost.

JB finds a seat at one of the tables. He’s free for the rest of the morning, and can enjoy his beverage, observe his fellow patrons and the television--that’s still something of a novelty to him, although he knows it’s been around for a long time. They’re advertising sales---it’s barely December, and he’s been catching ads for weeks--since long before Thanksgiving Day. It used to be that the store decorations all went up on the day after Thanksgiving, but now they’re fighting for space with the Halloween pumpkins. 

Then the morning show comes back on, and the pretty young hostess mentions that today is the anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor, the act that prompted America’s entry into World War 2. She says it with no more feeling than if she was talking about cavemen hitting each other with clubs. It’s that distant to her. Of course, although she looks no older than the face JB sees reflected in store windows, she really is 30-something. These events were history before her mother was born.

With a wrench, he remembers that day. He’d been shining his good shoes--he had a date that night--when the radio stopped playing Glenn Miller and an announcer started talking about the terrible devastation in Hawaii. He’d sat there, shoe in one hand, brush in the other, staring at the bakelite radio on the shelf as it detailed the treacherous raid on their forces in the Pacific. Horror and anger overwhelmed him…so many dead, a lot of them no older than he.

The hostess cuts to a clip, an interview with one of the last survivors of Pearl Harbor. There’s a picture, side-by-side with the frail old man, of how he’d looked as a young ensign in uniform, and JB has to look away. JB is still young, but that old man has lived every day, every year of the life he spent frozen, or doing terrible things for terible people. He truly is a survivor.

For a while, he sits and stares at the dark brown surface of the table. That’s safe. It has no ties to the past. It can’t hurt him, can’t accuse him of cheating, of hopscotching lightly through time while others carried on, living honest lives.

The morning show has given way to a game show, the emcee like a Coney Island huckster or one of the vaudeville performers he used to go see. Then, over the babble of televised jollity, the voice of a young woman on her cell phone carries over the hubbub.

“There is nothing worse than a December birthday,” she says loudly to whoever she’s talking to. Which isn’t true: JB can think of dozens of worse things, and they’re just the ones filed under H for Hydra. “Last year, my Aunt Carol had the nerve to tell me it was my own fault if I didn’t like my gifts. If I’d been born after Christmas instead of the week before, at least she could shop the after Christmas sales. And don’t get me started about the people who say their gift is a combination present. Or the wrapping paper! Enough with the red and green paper, you cheap a-holes.”

JB takes a sip of his coffee. A memory is trying to surface--he’s gotten familiar with the sensation, as if the pieces of his past are rising from deep water to bob on the surface, accessable. 

_December birthday. Red and green…._

_His mama’s coat is dark green wool, and little Jimmy clutches the flap where the pocket is so she won’t get lost. Mama pushes the buggy with his baby sister Betsy in it, and as they walk down the street, people from their neighborhood pause them to say what a pretty baby she is.They don’t know what stinky diapers she makes, but Jimmy doesn’t say that. He’s a big boy; he doesn’t make messes like that anymore._

_There are shiny tinsel decorations on the lampposts, and a lot of the store windows are fancier than usual. That’s because it’s going to be Christmas soon, Mama says. He kind of remembers that from last year. Christmas is special, he knows._

_When they go into the bakery, the nice lady there admires Betsy. “Eleven weeks old on Thursday,” Mama says._

_“I’m going to be four!” Jimmy announces. He’s a bit tired of everyone fussing over his baby sister, whose only claims to fame are eating, sleeping, crying and messing herself._

_“James!” Mama says in the tone that means ‘Be quiet right now’. “The grownups are having a conversation here.”_

_So he’s quiet, and busies himself by stepping from one green and tan diamond rosette to the next and walking from one side of the bakery to the other without touching the white patches of six-sided tiles. Jimmy likes the bakery. It’s warm, and smells sweet, and he likes the pattern of tiles on the floor._

_“When are you going to be four, love?” the bakery lady asks him when she and Mama have had their conversation._

_He knows it’s soon. “Tomorrow?” he says hopefully._

_“He was born on the 25th,” Mama supplies. “It isn’t tomorrow,” she says to him. “It isn’t for two more weeks.”_

_“Born on Christmas Day?” The bakery lady looks as if he’s done something great. “You must be a little angel. That deserves something special.”_

_“An angel?” Mama laughs. “Well, he does try to help…just the other day, he scrubbed a whole tub full of potatoes. I only needed a few, but that’s alright, they’ll be clean when I do need ‘em!”_

_The bakery lady offers him a cookie. It’s shaped like a star, and one side is sprinkled with red sugar. “Thank you!” he says, because Mama has taught him that that’s what you say when someone does something for you or gives you something._

_“Should I save some for Betsy?” he asks as they go outside._

_“No, she’s much too little for cookies. She hasn’t any teeth to chew them with. I don’t want any, either. It’s yours. But mind you, if it spoils your lunch, I’ll be cross!”_

_Jimmy nibbles the treat as they walk home. Then something occurs to him. “Mama, people get presents on their birthdays, don’t they?”_

_“Yes, usually they do. Why, is there something you especially want?”_

_He shakes his head. “I’m worried about Betsy. I’m afraid she wouldn’t understand if I get something nice and she doesn’t get anything at all. Can we get her something, just a little present?”_

_Mama has the funniest expression on her face. “That’s very sweet of you to think about her feelings, James, but your birthday is on Christmas Day. Everyone gets presents on Christmas.”_

_They do? That’s the most wonderful thing he’s ever heard--everyone in the whole world getting gifts on his birthday! She explains why on their walk home, how it’s in honor of the Son of God who was born on that day._

_“The very same day?”_

_“Well, I wasn’t there, love, but that’s what the church teaches us.”_

It’s so clear…JB can picture his mother’s face, hear the squeaky wheels on Betsy’s buggy…. Not all his returning memories are this vivid. And yet, the 21st century is all around him; the grumbling young woman is still on her phone, the TV has people shouting at each other….

There’s no pattern to his sudden recollections, but he’d be surprised to have another so soon. Meanwhile, he needs to get back to the Tower. He’s dawdled later than usual today, and there’s his workout session with Hill to look forward to. She’s still trying to kill him; he tries not to let his amusement show. She has potential--with the proper training, she can be unstoppable.

On the way out, he detours briefly to the counter. A few moments after the door has closed behind JB, the counter-person approaches Ms. Cell Phone. “The patron who just left sent this over,” says the server, setting down a red velvet donut. “and arranged for you to have a free refill of your beverage.” The woman looks up from her phone, astonished. “He left a message: ‘Merry Christmas from one December baby to another.’.”

.


End file.
